Imagining and Forecasting the Future

An archive, in reverse chronological order, of essays, interviews, and talks relating to the future.

Welcome to the 21st Century: How To Plan For the Post-Covid Future (O'Reilly, May 2020).

This essay uses scenario planning and other forecasting methodologies we use at O'Reilly to reflect on how things might change as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic. My main goal was to get people more comfortable with change and to describe a set of useful tools for thinking about it. It's a tutorial on thinking in vectors, watching for news from the future, and developing strategies that will be robust in the face of radically different futures.